Cave Hikers follows an expedition of three different playable characters in their quest to find a mythical “surface”. On their journey, they will explore various underground biomes, meet an adorable cast of characters, try out plentiful unique environment interactions, solve slightly challenging puzzles, and make choices that will affect the look and details of the story...
Main characters
Aki
Aki is the warrior and the diplomat of the group. Her sword can cut through many obstacles. Her communication skills can reason with most creatures of the caves. Her gills and tentacles help her swim to the deepest of depths. Her go-getter attitude pushes the group forward even when they want to rest for five more minutes. She’s the first to wake up and last to fall asleep. Through their adventure, she slowly learns that her companions would like her more if she left them to sleep a few minutes longer instead of bothering them until they wake up.
Valeriano
Valeriano is the alchemist and the coordinator. He reads the book, he makes the potions. He can mix wonderful concoctions out of natural ingredients. He can find most information that they need. Only problem is, he is a bit slow on the physical side and cripplingly shy when he tries to talk with unknown creatures. With time he learns that loosening up a bit is not the scariest thing that the caves can offer.
Vuvo
Besides being a cute ball of love and anger, Vuvo is a genius mechanical engineer, the bravest glory hound of the group, and is sometimes able to channel excess physical energy into wild magic. Besides that, Vuvo can eat almost anything, argue with almost anyone, and fall madly in and out of love with everyone within a few seconds. Vuvo doesn’t learn much during the expedition. Vuvo is perfect just the way Vuvo is.
Gameplay
Game mechanics
Pointing, clicking.
Player will do everything with the mouse. When the mouse explores the screen, the world reacts with subtle feedback. Water burbles, insects buzz, leaves rustle, glowy things glow harder, creatures wave at the player, bubbles pop, fountains splash and guitar twangers twang. The environment will be made very “tactile” to help the player relax and feel free to explore the screen.
Upon clicking on objects, more involving things will happen. Usually, one or more of the hikers will try to interact with the clicked object or creature. Objects can get gathered. Hints may be conveyed. Clicking is basically the way to progress the story and the puzzles further.
Hidden objects
Besides adventuring through the tactile response of the world, sometimes the characters will need to gather things scattered all over the screen. They will either need them to assemble a concoction, use for trading, help someone out, or just collect extra weight so they can slow their vehicle to reasonable speeds. Some of the less useful but more hidden objects can be added to get extra achievements and encourage replayability.
Valeriano’s foldable alchemical suitcase
Every now and then, cave hikers will gather some ingredients for Valeriano to cook up and make a magical potion from his magical suitcase that folds into a small alchemy table. At the right moment, an appropriate recipe from the book of caves will show up and tell the player what to make and the way to make it. Player will have to heat up, pour, mix, shake, measure, wait for things to boil and do other sorts of potion-making actions to help Valeriano make an excellent product with amazing effects. In case of absolute failure, the player may need to restart the recipe. Sometimes they will even need to gather some of the resources again.
The suitcase is simple enough at the beginning. A few test tubes, mortar and pestle, maybe some magical spices. As the game progresses, Hikers will find more tools that make Valeriano’s alchemy set more complex but also powerful. In the late game, his alchemy table will be full of things to click, drag and shake, but the player will have more than enough experience to use all the tools properly.
Time and play testing will tell us the perfect amount of challenge to make alchemy fun and memorable.
Take a look at our early trailer
Dev team
Sven Nemet is the director, author and illustrator of the project
Zvonimir Barać is the co-author and the animator.
Fabjan Bakulić is the programmer.
Lea Konjetić is the composer.
The book of caves
All the hints, part of the story and even some instructions can be read as separate sections at opportune time (such as getting a specific recipe for a situation), or leafed through as a regular book. The book can also be a separate pdf, friendly for printing as a physical booklet for that old school feel of having a manual alongside your game.
The book will contain the following crudely drawn pages:
- Illustrated theory about a cave without a ceiling
- A map of familiar territory
- All the recipes needed for the game
- Anatomy of some creatures from the game
- Few more random tidbits and surprises
The book will be about 40 small pages big. As it can also be a separate printable pdf or even sold as a physical booklet, it can also serve as a coloring book.